The Alexander Payne-directed awards contender opened Wednesday in New York and Los Angeles.

Alexander Payne's awards hopeful The Descendants--starring George Clooney--nabbed $39,864 as it opened in five theaters in Los Angeles and New York on Wednesday in a bid to build word-of-mouth heading into Thanksgiving week.

From Fox Searchlight, the specialty film sported a per location average of $7,973. That's slightly ahead of the opening day location average of Clint Eastwood'sJ. Edgar, which grossed $52,645 last Wednesday from seven theaters for an average $7,521.

Descendants tells the story of Matt King (Clooney), the trustee of his family's ancestral land in Hawaii who tries to reconnect with this two daughters when his wife slips into a coma after a boating accident.